Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it shouldn’t have come as a
surprise to anyone when Canada declined to sign an
agreement-in-principle Friday on an updated Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade deal.

Trudeau said Saturday in Vietnam that despite some
significant progress on the deal’s framework there’s still more work to
be done, particularly when it comes to protecting Canada’s auto and
cultural sectors.

His decision Friday to keep negotiating for a
better deal in the 11-country pact rather than striking an agreement led
to the abrupt cancellation of a TPP leaders’ meeting on the sidelines
of a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation.

Rather, he didn't know what he was doing and ruined everything.

Other politicians may be "shocked" but no one else is.

Carbon taxes are money-grabs for irresponsible governments that recklessly throw around money. One wonders why poverty activists aren't in the front-lines arguing against these ridiculous taxes unless watching people go without food serves their purposes:

Trudeau’s carbon pricing plan, such as it is, is a
noxious mix of carbon taxes and cap and trade cash grabs which have
proven to be ineffective and inefficient wherever they’ve been tried in
the real world, as they will be in Canada.

Crucially,
they ignore the importance of revenue neutrality — that every dollar
raised through carbon pricing must be returned directly to the public
rather than fatten government coffers.

Why?
Because without revenue neutrality, all carbon pricing does —
particularly at the level required for it to be effective — is to cause a
massive recession, which only lowers emissions to the extent it wrecks
the economy.

And what in Heaven’s name can Bashar al-Assad offer to the oft-invoked
“climate community” that has our tranquil nation saluting him? Has he
promised to cut back fighter jet traffic in the bombing of his own
citizens? Does displacing some two to three million Syrian citizens
count in some sadistic way in cutting back on Syria’s carbon
emissions? Has he pledged to cut back on the gas attack emissions?

Federal ethics watchdog Mary Dawson is launching an examination of
Finance Minister Bill Morneau's involvement in a pension bill that could
have benefited a company in which he owned some $21 million worth of
shares.

A controversial new policy is causing anxiety for some members of the
Canadian Armed Forces who risk losing monthly allowances they receive
for high readiness and high risk duties.

Such salary top-ups will now be terminated if personnel are sick or
injured and cannot return to active service after more than 180 days, as
CTV’s Mercedes Stephenson first reported Wednesday.

“Why would you take away monies that their family relies upon as part
of their income when they're at their most vulnerable, when they're
broken and trying to mend,” said veterans advocate Mark Campbell.

Under this new policy, Canada’s most elite commandos could stand to be
docked more than $23,000 over six months. But the new rules also apply
to more than just Special Operations Forces members -- injured or ill
soldiers and sailors could take a hit of almost $5,000 while for air
crews, $3,700 is at stake.

“It may in some cases mean that people hide their injuries and not come
forward because they want those additional funds to be there for their
families and themselves,” said Phil Ralph of Wounded Warriors Canada.

A plan by University of Toronto
psychology professor Jordan Peterson to launch a website that would
allow students to identify leftist faculty has "created a climate of
fear and intimidation" and is a "threat to [professors] and to the
academic mission of the University," the school's faculty association
says.

In a statement released on
Friday afternoon, the association demanded a meeting between its
executive members and University of Toronto provost Cheryl Regehr to
express their deep concern. Asking for such a meeting is an
"unprecedented step," the statement says.

The
faculty association's comments came days after professors from the
school's Women and Gender Studies Institute (WGSI) sent a letter to
university administrators and student leaders detailing Dr. Peterson's
plans to start a site that identifies faculty and course reading lists
that are what he calls "postmodern."

(Sidebar: of course it would have to be that department.)

But
Dr. Peterson said the concern is premature, as he has not yet launched
the site. "No such site exists, and the site was only trying to provide
people with information," he said in an interview.

Dr.
Peterson has gained a high profile over the past 18 months for his
criticism of what he believes is the dominance of Marxism, socialism and
postmodernist ideas among university professors and students.

This is why Peterson et al need to put their speeches on Youtube, shout them from rooftops and leave pamphlets everywhere.

The Democratic party was “leeched it of its vitality” by Former
President Barack Obama and others in the lead-up to the 2016 election
campaign, according to Donna Brazile, former interim chair of the
Democratic National Committee.

A memory that has remained vivid for Cote since that spring of 1953 was seeing the effects of the war on Korean civilians.

"The
worst part of it, what I didn't like to see, was little wee kids at all
the train stations, no clothes, starving ... probably their parents got
killed. These are the things that you see when you go into action."

Cote said the children were no older than four or five years old, begging for food.

"We
used to throw our rations at them from the train... We would just throw
them out to them. You'd see them scrambling, picking them up and what
not."

Only one half of Korea now lives in prosperity (the other half still has the unfortunatekotjebi with whom Mr Cote is familiar) and that is a better memorial than anything in stone or plastic.